Month: July 2017

11pm, you’re staring at the ceiling with elated excitement over the 50 epiphanies you’ve had over that past hour.

You’re going to get up in the morning and freaking rock life! Nail it in fact! Make it your mother f-ing bitch!

you’re going to make your relationships with your loved ones amazing and set your entire life up for success!

You’re going to get up drink a smoothie, run a million miles and never eat chocolate again.

You’re going to study hard and make a million trillion dollars in some amazing business idea you came up with 10 minutes ago, why? Because YOU’RE A FREAKING GENIUS, RIGHT!

Life come at me!!!!!! POW!

Fast forward a week.

Too hard, fell off the band wagon, woo me, now I’m going to start the never ending spiral of negative self-talk and wallow in the fact that I’m a failure and life sucks and things will never work out for me. Best get used to the mediocre life…. I’ll be living it forever….

Fast forward 6 months later, we get sick of mediocre, lay in bed at 11pm, get elated with excitement over the same 50 epiphanies we had 6 months ago annnnnnd the cycle starts again.

Now I could take this example and run in 1000 different directions as to why we do the above and how to fix it. Today, however, I want to talk about how the little habits that are CONSITANTLY done, build other habits and snowball into awesomness. Awesomness is way better than self-loathing every day of the week, so listen up!

So now, having read that, you can understand that “Basil” (part of our brain called the Basal Ganglia) is going to freak the frig out if you go diving in and change every single thing all at once. He will make life hard for you thus why we give up our 50 epiphanies within a week. So you need to make life easy for him.

Now, before I go any further I’m just going to put an astrix in here and say – * I won’t say don’t dive in all at once. If you are capable of over turning your entire life overnight, ALL power to you gurl!

For those, however, who go through or have gone through the above cycle like myself I suggest taking one step at a time. It will have a roll on effect.

So say for example you want to get fit and healthy….

Start with eating better. Come home still sit on the lounge, don’t yoga, don’t get up for an early morning jog, go to bed late, just eat better – Simple. Basil’s a little confused but he’s ok, Courtney will calm him down with your help.

You can go even smaller. Still have a burger for lunch and deep fried mars bar for dinner, swap out your coco pops for a smoothy every morning, the next week ditch the burger for a wrap, the next week switch the deep fried mars bar for a healthy stir fry.

If you Fall off the band wagon, start again…. IT’S GOING TO HAPPEN! Big whoop!

Here’s a spoiler…

IT’S OK TO NOT BE PERFECT! Sorry to burst your bubble! Do your best that’s all that can be expected of you!

Just DON’T GIVE UP! Don’t let Monday roll around before you start again, every day is Monday the only difference is that Wednesday day is called “Monday” it’s just a label! Shock horror I know! Monday isn’t a day all to itself and then we have tueswednesthursfrisatsunday, each day is a new day, each day is a new day, each day is a new day! Don’t (excuse the language) wait for fucking Monday!!!

I’ll get off my soap box now. Thank you, Thank you very much!

Habits somehow – there might be science behind this there might not be – attract more habits similar to it. Your habits will align to support each other. Firstly here’s how bad habits support each other…

Right now you may be eating none nutritious foods that don’t fuel your energy, if you’re low on energy chances are you won’t feel like exercising, if you’re not exercising and on a high from a sugary after dinner snack, chances are that you’re going to get a shit sleep, wake up tired, eat food that’s going to keep you tired and not exercise because you’re tired.

Now I’m going to become self-absorbed here and explain to you how the habits I’m creating through my habit tracker support themselves.

I’m making an effort to eat little sugar and eat right, Tick, I therefore have energy to exercise, tick. I read before bed instead of getting on social media, tick, I turn my light out at 10pm, tick. The Next morning, I’m well rested because I did all of the later, I now have the energy to get up at 6:15am, tick, I do yoga, Tick, I feel good and want to feel even better so I drink my lemon water, tick, I eat the right breakfast to sustain me for the day and so the habits roll around and around and around.

Make no mistake, it has taken 2 years for me to get all of these in line to the extent that I have today, I am the slowest person in the world when it comes to self-discipline but I’m working on it, one habit at a time. Now I have momentum but when I first started to me I’d just started exercising but it’s snowballed from there. So don’t feel you have to do all of these all at once, take your time, just keep going.

What I want you to take from this is seeing how when you set one thing on track it rolls into several others? These are called keystone habits. Go to bed earlier, get up earlier make that your habit and see the roll on effects.

What’s your keystone habit? Which one habit do you change? Write down all the habits that you want to make to achieve your goal, whatever that may be. Consider each habit which one will have the biggest roll on effect to the others? Pick that one and do it, EVERY SINGLE DAY!

So, moral to the story, don’t be afraid to make or break just one habit, it will grow, I promise and Basil will be none the wiser. *wink*

So, make it and break it-ers, in six months’ time will you be just a little closer to achieving your 50 epiphanies or will you be staring at your ceiling at 11pm having them again?

Well haven’t I indulged in the land of “F social media”, Sorry guys, I did promise blogs and instagram pics. I know, I know, I’m a shit blogger!

Meh, I’ve loved it!

I’ve felt like such a freaking rebel getting my bad ass on actually holding conversations and being in awkward situations without buffering my way out of them by looking at my phone. I have life skills bitches!!

So what’s happened over the past month? Let’s start with the not so great times first.

Day 2, I forfeited a netball game because in my head I didn’t think we would have enough numbers but actually our group chat said we had plenty. Oops! That was a one way ticket to pissing 7 women off! Sorry ladies!

Next, a quick apology to the 3 beautiful brides-to-be for whom I’m Bridesmaid for this year. Sorry you had to separately text me due to my non conformity with your BM group chats! Thanks for being awesome and texting your wayward BM x

Now, all sins confessed and the shitty parts of not having social media done and dusted, let’s get to the good stuff!

The first point I’d like to make shocked me – But it was my favourite part. I came to realise how disconnected I had become from having actual connections with people in my life. I’d figured I was doing a good job half-heartedly taking part in my loved ones lives every day through social media. The past month I have felt more engaged and apart of my friends and families lives than I ever did before. I’ve learnt to not underestimate the importance of phone calls, texts to an individual, being fully engaged in conversations, hearing what someone has done in their lives first hand and actually being there, right there, in the flesh for someone you love.

Mushy lovey dovey stuff out of the way….

…So much time for activities! I’ve been reading again, books, magazines, the back of the toilet spray. Remember the days when you could name every ingredient of the lavender spray in the bathroom! I’ve studied every week, half a unit to go and I’m a Life Coach, officially!!! HOW ECITING!! Yoga of a morning and actually going to bed to sleep at night. I like these things filling in my days, it brings me happiness, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram don’t.

I got to choose when I dealt with negativity and bullshit. You have no control over what people put in your life with social media, I didn’t realise how much it was actually infiltrating my moods and thoughts until they didn’t. I felt a level of calm just dealing with my own world and the world of those I invite into mine. I now almost have an anxiety attack at the thought of keeping up with 1224 worlds just in FB friends.

I don’t actually like social media, which was news to me! It’s just a habit, I didn’t miss it at all! I actually feel like I was cheating on my “break a habit mission”, it wasn’t hard like I thought it would be. Sure the first few days I was picking up my phone and putting it down realising that there was nothing on it for me but that was it. I have nothing to report in the way of tips for giving up social media, because it’s easy, you just have to do it.

Now the big question, make it or break it? Hmmmm… half half. When it comes to Facebook Messenger, life is actually easier and better with it, I wouldn’t be without it. I’m going to do a BIG clean up on the other platforms, kick some “friends” and unfollow pages. I love seeing photos of my besties babies and exciting moments in friends lives, that I’ve missed. Seeing a cat lick itself however I don’t feel brings much value to my life.

So that’s that…. Stay tuned for next month… I’m excited about this one, time to make a habit… or should I say habits!